


Time and Tide

by minnabird



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Mild Sexual Content, Time Travel, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-06
Updated: 2012-02-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 10:38:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,493
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/502613
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/minnabird/pseuds/minnabird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Filius has seen her all his life: the Woman. She has been drifting through time, drawn always towards him, never aging or changing.</p><p>She is the one thing he does not question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time and Tide

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the First Annual Great Hall Cotillion contest at the Mugglenet Fan Fiction Beta Boards.

Pain. Pain is everything. It swallows the world, and finally what is around her matches what is inside her. It’s not what she was looking to do. She wanted to find a way to turn back time, to stop Helena leaving, because she doesn’t know if she can bear this betrayal, and she has failed abjectly. But she can’t help thinking, as everything dissolves, that there’s a certain kind of fittingness here.

*

  
Filius has seen her all his life: the Woman. She is rather dramatic-looking: black hair, ivory skin, pale eyes, strong jaw. He never sees her wearing anything but the rich blue robes he first saw her in. These are not the things that draw him to her, though. It’s the mystery of her: who is she, this Woman who never ages, who has witnessed every important moment of his life? He even thinks he catches a glimpse of her his first day at Hogwarts. She is there when he hides from his cousins’ jeers, when he gets his first wand, in the pub where he asks Phillipa Jenkins out and she says yes, in the crowd at his first duel, walking High Street when Pippa chucks him, through a litany of ordinary but life-changing moments.

But it isn’t until his last duel that he speaks to the Woman.

*

  
She drifts on a sea of time, fetching up now and again on some foreign shore. It is her own country, to be sure, but a very alien version of it. Sometimes she stays for weeks at a time, even months once, but the tide always comes back in eventually and carries her out with it.

It is her own fault - her own folly. She was desperate and arrogant both, complacent in her power and willing to do anything to get her daughter back. Even unto plunging headlong into an attempt at something that no person, wizard or no, should have the power to do. She knows this now. She is merely human. It is not for her to manipulate the strings of time.

It is a fitting punishment that she is now at sea without a rudder, carried farther and farther away from a time when all was well. 

There are vast gulfs of difference between the times in which she lands, until suddenly there aren’t, and there are only small changes. There is a constant in this new way of things: a little boy at first, with wide brown eyes and a mop of dark hair, burning with irrepressible curiosity. He grows little, but he changes much. 

She does not know why she is drawn to him, but she is wise enough to let Destiny take its course. It is not a current she can fight, after all.

*

  
Spells flash through the air, faster than the eye can follow. One takes a chunk out of the lovely parquet flooring, and Filius allows himself only a split-second to think that that was nearly his shoulder. 

His mind is whirring through hexes and counterjinxes even as he dodges again, thinking ahead, watching, waiting for an opening.

There it is, and his mind presents him with the perfect spell, and he’s lunging and whipping his wand in a violent arc. A hissing sheet of blue fire springs through the air, engulfing Filius’ opponent, who falls to the ground, gasping. His eyes are wide, his mouth open in a perfect ‘O’, and he does not get up.

Triumph roars through him as the crowd erupts in cheers. One more duel, and the championship will be decided.

It is then that he sees her, and for the first time, their eyes meet.

*

  
He has grown, the boy. He is no longer a boy, not even nearly so; he cannot be any more than ten years her junior now, and very probably less. A fierce fighter; no match for Godric, but she thinks she recognizes her own calculated style in him. He has come so far since that first duel. So very far in life since she first saw him. She has seen it all play out, in small and big moments, and she feels she knows him, though they have never spoken. Perhaps, at last, it is time to change that.

She steps forward as he leaves the strip, a smile starting as she catches his eyes. “Hello,” she says. “I believe it’s time we introduced ourselves.” 

*

  
Filius leaves without a second thought, though he has spent months working towards winning this competition. 

They talk over a drink or several, and Filius doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to her voice. It’s low for a woman’s, and expressive. When she flirts, there is no doubt, only a flush rising in his face. Until now they have been speaking of spellwork, a mutual passion for the mechanics and intricacies of it becoming apparent, even as his mind drifts far from the subject at hand. The suggestive lowering of her voice as she proposes they leave is a departure, but not unwelcome.

Far from it.

*

  
She wakes warm and decidedly not alone for the first time in what feels like a very long time. A lifetime, even. If this is life after death, then the Muggle prophets are right; it is very good indeed.

Lying there, drowsily content, she thinks that this was more than visceral pleasure. She doesn’t understand it, but she thinks perhaps this is the reason they have been thrown together. It is a strange thought, coming so fast on the heels of meeting this man, but the truth is that she has known this man all his life. It is entirely possible that she knows him as well as anyone does, and yet he does not even know her name.

She pushes herself out of bed with a groan and begins dressing. As she is putting her hair into order, Filius stirs and wakes, favoring her with a sleepy smile. Dear Filius. He is one of her own, she knows, though he must never know how very true that is. Perhaps silence is better; last night’s conversation was wonderful, but she cannot speak truthfully of herself to him, and she does not wish to lie to him.

Before she can smile back, she feels the tide coming in again. Her eyes widen, and she opens her mouth to speak, but then she is gone.

*

  
Filius never duels in competition again. 

It’s not to do with her, precisely; though their night together sunk his hopes of a title that year, and the press was briefly fascinated by the mysterious woman who stopped the three-time All-England dueling champion and darling of the dueling circuit becoming a four-time champion. 

It is simply time for a change. The thrill was wonderful, but he has deferred his intellectual growth for too long. She woke that love of knowledge in him again with her conversation, reminded him why he had been destined for Ravenclaw rather than Gryffindor. It is too much a part of him to deny any longer, and so he dips his toe into the realm of Charms research.

This, too, has its thrills, though of a quieter, more solitary kind. 

*

  
When they find each other again, Filius does not question it. It is perhaps the first thing in his life he has not questioned, but he is simply too happy to waste time on indulging curiosity. There are other things to indulge, after all.

They meet time and time again, and they rarely speak. She seems to prefer it; when he begins to ask her things, she closes off. He permits her her secrets; she does not, after all, ask his. They speak instead in touches and intimacy, warmth shared and passion kindled, that long fall over the precipice together. They make noise without meaning, and meaning without noise.

He clutches her close after, wanting her to stay. He knows her little, but he cannot shut off his heart, and it thrills to her presence. No matter how tightly he holds her, she disappears, always, and he is left alone among sheets that still smell of her.

Finally, he asks her what he assumes will be a simple question, one he can’t believe he has not asked yet: “What is your name?”

She hesitates, though, and he regrets it. This is their arrangement. He has worked it out by now. But after a long, long moment, she finally says, “Rowena Ravenclaw,” and he breathes a sigh of relief. He has a name, and she has her privacy, and there will be no strife. She will continue to come, though she will never stay.

He will never know that she is speaking the truth.

*

  
She’s slipping again, but this time she fights it. It’s like a riptide, carrying her farther and farther away, and there’s no way out. 

She surfaces, at last, to find herself in her own rooms, in her own time, and it feels like death.


End file.
